


A Spirited Discussion on the Nature of Love

by Sath



Series: Aimantation [1]
Category: Les Misérables - Victor Hugo
Genre: Angst, Breathplay, Canon Era, Frottage, M/M, cravats are not normally abused so
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-18
Updated: 2013-03-18
Packaged: 2017-12-05 17:58:47
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,702
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/726182
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sath/pseuds/Sath
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Combeferre and Enjolras debate the relation of reason to love; Grantaire disagrees. Enjolras's counterargument is unconventional.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Spirited Discussion on the Nature of Love

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into Русский available: [Бурная дискуссия о природе любви](https://archiveofourown.org/works/4427153) by [drunkenbilly](https://archiveofourown.org/users/drunkenbilly/pseuds/drunkenbilly)



Combeferre and Enjolras had been talking in low tones in the back of the Musain all evening, their conversation always orbiting around ‘reason’ and ‘love.’ “Reason is the midwife of compassion, which leads to love,” Combeferre said, and Enjolras nodded in agreement. 

Grantaire made a gagging sound. He did not think either of them knew much about love. Well, that was to do both men a disservice – they certainly knew quite a lot about it without understanding the spirit of the thing at all. Grantaire should leave them to it, let them pick over calmly what made fools of the rest of the world, but instead he picked up his bottle of wine and pulled up a chair next to the self-anointed priests of the Republic. 

“If reason produced compassion and love, lawyers would be saints and Rousseau wouldn’t have left his five bastards to the tender mercies of the orphanage,” Grantaire said. “Reason miscarried somewhere between Rousseau’s head and his balls.” 

“Trust you to take the metaphor somewhere obscene,” Enjolras said. 

“I didn’t know that you trusted me to do anything at all.” 

“Should I?” Enjolras asked. “If I trusted you to drain that bottle in one go, would you, or would you choke on it just so you could continue to fail?” 

“Let’s see,” Grantaire replied, lifting the bottle to his lips and drinking deeply. The wine was strong and the bottle was nearly full, but he could finish it as long as he breathed slowly through his nose. Enjolras watched him with disinterest. Grantaire was tiresome, after all. 

Combeferre yanked the bottle out of his hands and Grantaire did choke, coughing as the wine seemed to go into his lungs. 

“That’s enough,” Combeferre said while he thumped Grantaire’s back. 

“Clever you, saving Enjolras from overestimating my ability to drink or underestimating my obstinacy.” 

There was only a little liquid left in the bottle. Grantaire felt like he was going to be sick from drinking so much at once. 

“You’re too kind a midwife, Combeferre. If you two pontiffs of love will excuse me, I must depart for my Sinopian barrel. I do hope you figure out love before the night’s end, though I don’t think you’ll make any headway on sex,” Grantaire said. 

He turned his back on them, having had enough of amateur obstetrics. Grantaire had only taken a few steps when he felt Enjolras yank him back by his cravat. 

“We are not finished. If you are going to interrupt my conversation, I would have your opinion before you go.” 

“I’ll know better next time than to come between a virgin congress on the arts of love,” Grantaire replied. 

Enjolras’s hold on his cravat tightened, blunt nails scraping against the skin of Grantaire’s neck. Only his terror of Enjolras’s irritation kept Grantaire from inclining against his hand like a pleased cat, but it didn’t stop him from hardening in his trousers. 

“Why are you suddenly so hesitant to speak your mind, Grantaire? If no one wants to hear you, you’re Cicero. I ask, and now you’re silent.” 

Grantaire flicked his eyes over at Combeferre. 

“I do not feel like having an audience today,” Grantaire said. 

“Easily fixed,” Enjolras said, and dragged Grantaire into the empty back room. He had trouble following Enjolras’s angrily long strides and stumbled once against Enjolras’s backside before he was shoved against the wall. God, he hoped it wasn’t possible for sexual frustration to kill a man.

Grantaire kept his eyes chastely fixed on the map of the Republic because if he looked at Enjolras, he was fairly certain he’d whimper. If his arousal was noticed, he wasn’t sure who would smite him first, a spectral National Convention or Enjolras. The fact that he was nevertheless working up to the most inopportune erection of his life meant he would probably enjoy the second possibility. 

“You just want to tell me how I’m wrong,” Grantaire said, his voice somehow steady. He supposed all of his drunken oration had finally come to bear fruit. 

“If that frightened you, you’d say nothing at all. Look at me,” Enjolras commanded. 

Enjolras’s grip on Grantaire had loosened (it was more of a comradely hand on the shoulder now, an irony not lost on Grantaire) but Enjolras was standing even closer now, crowding him. Grantaire tried to bring his hand up to Enjolras’s wrist to push him away, but Grantaire feared that touching Enjolras would somehow drive away whatever had brought Grantaire under the burning weight of Enjolras’s full attention. 

“I think only someone who’d never been in love would associate it with reason. There’s nothing reasonable about it.”

“Combeferre and I were not talking about your drunken fumblings,” Enjolras replied. 

“Perhaps you should! Practice your love of man on poor Grantaire,” Grantaire said, and how he kept himself from laughing at the pun, only God would know. “Love is nasty. It’s jealous and spiteful. It’s Medea chopping her brother to pieces and murdering her children, it’s innocent little Deianira and a charm full of poison. Or what about that fifteen thousand line ode to rapine, the Iliad? I can leave Greece, if you would like. David loved Bathsheba – Holofernes, Judith. To Italy! There was Catullus and Lesbia, _illa Lesbia nunc in quadriviis et angiportis glubit magnanimi Remi nepotes._ Where shall I take you next?”

Something terrible flickered over Enjolras’s face, the faintest spasm of his lip and brow that meant he’d had one of his flashes of comprehension. 

“So this is what you want from me,” Enjolras said, softly enough that Grantaire did not catch his meaning until he felt Enjolras’s thigh pressing against his hardness. “This is why you find love so sordid.”

And that was so much worse than Enjolras’s mere contempt for him, to have only the ugliest part of his feelings for Enjolras exposed and laid bare. Grantaire knew he was wretched, but there was no wretchedness in his regard for Enjolras. That Enjolras would find out Grantaire’s love in this way and rightfully call it _sordid_ was so awful even Grantaire had not anticipated it. 

“Please,” Grantaire said, desperate to set things right. Enjolras had to know how he inspired Grantaire, it was not Enjolras’s fault that his brightness faltered in the soul of a drunk. 

“Please what, Grantaire? Is it my hands? My mouth?” The parody of a comforting hand on Grantaire’s shoulder shifted into something meaner as Enjolras grabbed Grantaire’s cravat and tugged. “Or is it my cock that has you babbling poetry?” 

His lips curled around the word “cock” so disdainfully Grantaire almost wasn’t driven out of his mind by it. Grantaire had one last fragment of self-control slipping so quickly that he went grasping for more Catullus. 

_“Mellitos oculos tuos, si quis me sinat usque basiare-”_

“Enough,” Enjolras snapped, pulling on Grantaire’s cravat hard enough to jerk his head forward and leave him panting. 

_“Fuck,”_ Grantaire gasped. He couldn’t restrain himself anymore from rutting against Enjolras’s thigh. “Can I touch you? Nothing – nothing obscene.” 

Enjolras nodded. He started a little when Grantaire’s first move was to clasp Enjolras’s free hand and move it to his own waist. Grantaire would take what affection he could before Enjolras kicked him out of the Musain. He touched everything he dared, Enjolras’s sides, his chest, the exposed skin of his neck – Enjolras never could keep his cravat tied – and ran his hands through Enjolras’s hair. Enjolras tolerated everything until Grantaire dared to lightly stroke Enjolras’s cheek and Enjolras, with fingers wrapped around Grantaire’s throat, shoved Grantaire’s head back so forcefully his ears rang. Grantaire’s hips stuttered forward and he let out a ragged moan. 

“You like that,” Enjolras said. 

“Yes,” Grantaire sighed, pressing Enjolras’s hand harder against his throat when Enjolras’s grip started to loosen. “Please, just… let me - _ah!_ ” Enjolras had tightened his fingers. “Let me finish like this.” 

Enjolras tucked his head into Grantaire’s shoulder with a slow roll of his narrow hips and a cut off groan that sent Grantaire’s already addled mind reeling. Enjolras was completely hard as he fisted his hand in Grantaire’s waistcoat and thrust again. Grantaire’s vision started to swim with harsh pinpricks of light, he knew he wasn’t getting enough air but he couldn’t even _think_ , he was so close to coming and his neck would bear the marks of Enjolras’s fingers for days, even the imprints of his nails – then he felt Enjolras release him. Grantaire would have fallen over as he gasped for air if Enjolras hadn’t supported his limp weight. 

Enjolras’s eyes were wide. He really had no idea of his own strength. He looked flushed and his hair was dishevelled – Grantaire’s work. 

“You almost passed out,” Enjolras said. 

“It’s not your fault,” Grantaire said, rubbing Enjolras’s back as if he needed to be calmed. 

“You enrage me,” Enjolras replied. 

The angle wasn’t right – Enjolras was too tall – but Enjolras hitched up his thigh and lifted Grantaire’s waist until they fit together. Grantaire could feel Enjolras’s breath hot on his neck as Enjolras fucked him hard against the wall, Enjolras’s mouth brushing Grantaire’s skin like the hint of a kiss, and that was what finally brought Grantaire over the edge - Enjolras’s mouth. Enjolras scarcely lasted longer than Grantaire, his whole body shivering as he came. 

To his shock, Enjolras didn’t release Grantaire immediately. He trailed his hands up Grantaire’s chest, suddenly gentle, tapping his fingers at the hollow of Grantaire’s throat. 

“I’m sorry,” Grantaire said, feeling more than hearing Enjolras’s irritated huff. 

Enjolras had collected himself from whatever freak of mood had possessed him by the time he let go of Grantaire, his face shuttered. 

“I concede that your argument was not so poor as I had thought,” Enjolras said. 

Grantaire howled with laughter - _of course Enjolras still thought he was having an argument_. His reputation would go unsullied. “Please do not take that style of rhetoric to the streets.”

“Fix your cravat before you go out,” Enjolras said, unbothered by Grantaire’s outburst. 

“Will you allow me to come back?” 

Enjolras made a dismissive gesture. “I don’t care. Do what you will.” 

He left. Grantaire put his hands up to his neck, feeling where the skin was still hot. It was enough.

**Author's Note:**

> First of a 4 part series. 
> 
> Combeferre's rather unfortunately labored metaphor about compassion is derived from a typically 19th cent. quote by the German philosopher Ludwig Feuerbach: "Reason is the midwife of Nature: it explains, enlightens, rectifies and completes Nature." One might sympathize with Grantaire's reaction. 
> 
> Poems used (abbreviated somewhat in the heat of the moment by R) were:  
> Catullus 58 - "that Lesbia now on the street-corners and back-alleys jerks off the descendants of magnificent Remus"  
> Catullus 48 - "your honeyed eyes, if one should let me go on kissing still" (there's a lot more kisses that come later, because Catullus)


End file.
